Q: How did you come up with the idea for 101 Reasons Why I'm
Not Taking a Bath, and did you use some of those excuses when you were a kid?

A: This book started as a game I was playing with my kids.
When they didn’t want to do something like go to bed, I made them give my 101
(original) reasons why they shouldn’t have to.

Here’s my equation:

1 mom reason = 101 kid reasons

I always won.

And I don’t remember making excuses to avoid the bath as a
kid. I do remember trying to trick my mom. I’d run the water and make splashy
sounds, but I wouldn’t get in the tub. She was always on to me. Moms are smart.

Q: At what point did you see the illustrations for the book,
and what do you think they add to it?

A: I happened to be visiting NYC when the final art for this
project was completed. The editor, Maria, invited me in to see it. I think I
just giggled the whole time.

Seeing the illustrations for a manuscript you wrote is an
incredible experience. Pure joy and awe. Maybe it’s similar to seeing your
daughter try on wedding dresses.

Q: As someone who's written picture books and chapter books,
does your writing process change depending on what you're working on?

A: Sort of. With a picture book, if something isn’t working,
I’ll put it aside and hope that the solution will present itself as if by
magic.

For chapter books, I’m more likely to keep pushing. I’ll
rewrite scenes. I’ll create new scenes. I keep at it and don’t put it aside. I
also use outlines for chapter books, but obviously don’t do that for picture
books.

Q: Who were some of your favorite authors as a child?

A: I wasn’t a huge reader as a kid. I really struggled with
reading and didn’t enjoy it until high school. I did love being read to. My
elementary school librarian was excellent at reading Shel Silverstein and my
teachers shared lots of Judy Blume.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m just wrapping up a middle grade novel that I
think/hope is pretty special. I continue to work on picture books almost daily.
(I’ve recently fallen in love with non-fiction.) And I’m writing the chapter
book series for the toy company Goldie Blox. It’s a brand I really believe in.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I have a dino-sized giveaway coming up in October. Every
day one classroom will win all three Dino Files books. It’s my way of helping
build classroom libraries. Parents, teachers, and librarians can enter at www.thedinofiles.com.

A: When I was 17, I sat behind a girl who was engaged to a
much older, controlling guy. I thought this was nuts. A year after I got out of
high school, I heard the news. She had decided to break up with him, and he
calmly stabbed her to death.

I was so haunted. I couldn't figure out how she wouldn't
have known he was violent, or why she had stayed with someone controlling--not
until 10 years later when I was in a controlling relationship of my own.

My fiancé had died suddenly and I was dying from grief. I
went against the wishes of my mother, my friends and my grief therapist and
threw myself in a relationship with a guy who didn't want me to eat (I was 100
pounds but he thought I was fat), didn't want me seeing my friends or even his
friends, and very gently would criticize everything I did.

Why did I stay? Because I knew if I left, the grief would
come back. I finally left when I found that he had deleted part of my novel and
rewritten it--putting in a Groucho Marx joke!

Four years ago, I saw something online from the sister of my
high school friend. She was still searching for answers. That's when I knew I
had my story!

Q: You tell the story from the perspectives of various
characters. Did you plan it that way, or did it develop as you were writing?

A: I always like to get into the heads of the characters, so
I always write from different perspectives. Only my first two novels are first
person, then when I realized how much fun it was to write from everyone's
perspective, I stopped doing that!

Q: One of the major relationships in the book is between
Lucy and Charlotte, who are sisters. What intrigued you about the dynamic
between siblings?

A: My sister and I were incredibly close growing up. She was
my hero, my everything. She took me to Love Ins and clubs in Harvard Square and
even brought me on her dates!

When I turned 17, our dynamic changed. She got married young
and moved away--and things were never the same. I yearn for that closeness we
used to have!

Q: Why did you decide to set the book in the late 1960s-early
1970s, and what kind of research did you do to write it?

A: 1969 turned into 1970, and you could say that hope and
the profound feeling that we could change the world changed into reality and
Kent State and the invasion into Cambodia and the Mansons. It was really that
moment when you had to ask, what do I do with my hope?

I was in college in the ‘70s, so I didn't have to research
that, or 1969, but I still did. I talked to people who were at the student
strike at Brandeis. I talked to people who had lived on communes or who farmed.

I talked to cops who were around in the early ‘70s and to
someone who lived near the Mansons on Spahn ranch and who told me, "they
were hippies, but not the good kind." I always find you get the stories
from people. You can get the facts from books.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I actually was driving myself crazy working on two novels
at the same time until my agent told me to put one aside because it needed a
lot of restructuring. So I'm working on one now, but I'm deeply superstitious
and I can't talk about a novel until it's got the okay from my agent and
editor!

Q: How did you come up with the idea for Sherlock Sam, and
did you know from the beginning that it would be a series?

A: The idea for a chubby boy detective series set in
Singapore actually came from our Singaporean publisher, Epigram Books. They
held a sort of open call for writers to pitch ideas on this kind of series, and
we jumped at the chance.

When they ultimately chose us to write the books, we ended
up infusing the Sherlock character with a lot of our own characteristics: he
loves comics, he loves maths and science, and he loves to eat.

Then we created a bunch of other characters to round out the
Supper Club because, unlike the original Sherlock, we wanted our Sherlock to
have a "Scooby Gang" to work with.

Q: Are you both Sherlock Holmes fans, and do you have a
favorite Holmes adventure?

A: Yes, we both love Sherlock Holmes, and read many of the
stories as kids and we continue to follow his adventures as adults as well (we
love both the BBC series as well as the American series with Lucy Liu).

Adan's favorite adventure is "The Adventure of the
Greek Interpreter", which introduces Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother.
Felicia doesn't have a favorite story, but she loves the language of the original
series (she's a big fan of anything Victorian) and is also a huge fan of the
Laurie R. King series featuring Mary Russell.

Q: Many of the events in the books take place in specific
locations in Singapore. What do you think readers both in and outside of
Singapore will learn?

A: That there's lots of cool stuff in Singapore! We do a lot
of research before we start writing about a specific neighborhood, and we're
always discovering new and awesome things in those neighborhoods.

Singapore is a very small country, and many people (even
those of us who live here) might think we've seen it all and that there's
nothing new to discover because of our size.

But it turns out that's not true. Even people who have lived
in Singapore their entire lives can discover cool new things about it, and they
often make it into our books.

Also, as Singapore is a multi-racial, very diverse country,
we have some of the best food in the world and all Singaporeans take food very
seriously (which is why Sherlock Sam does as well). We feel anyone who spends
time in Singapore should spend 2-3 days in this country doing nothing but
eating.

However, even though our stories are set in Singapore, they
are still basically the story of a very curious boy and his friends going on
adventures, getting in trouble, and having fun.

We believe that these are stories that are universal and
children, regardless of where in the world they live, will be able to identify
with. We hope so anyway!

Q: How do the two of you collaborate as you write, and how
closely do you work with illustrator Andrew Tan?

A: We have to plan the books very closely as there are two
of us writing, and we can't just start writing willy nilly. That way lies
madness and confusion.

So we work together to plan out the story and organize it in
chapter breakdowns, so we both know what's going to happen in each chapter
(including important clues and jokes).

Once we're both good on the outline, we'll tag team on the
actual writing. Felicia usually starts first, then Adan tags in, then back to
Felicia, then back to Adan, so on and so forth until the book is done.

We used to tag after every chapter, but we realized that
tends to break our "writing flow," so now we write 2-3 chapters at a
time before tagging out.

We work with Andrew (aka drewscape) quite closely, as well.
We meet up before he starts any art to discuss what exactly we want him to
draw. He reads the books before our meetings, so he has ideas on what to draw
as well.

He'll start sketching during the meeting, to make sure we're
all happy with the basic composition and positioning, then sends us updates as
he gets further along in his process. He's a fantastic artist and we're super
lucky to have him aboard.

He's a also a geek and a comic fan and that allows him to
add nerdy stuff into his illustrations (which we love) without us prompting him
either. We love that!

Q: What’s next for Sherlock Sam?

A: He's growing taller for sure. Haha.

AMP will be publishing the third book (Sherlock Sam and the Sinister Letters in Bras Basah) in the series for the North
American market in February 2017, and the 11th book in the series, titled Sherlock
Sam and the Quantum Pair in Queenstown will be out in Singapore next month (barring any horrible happenings).

We have plans for the next three books in the series (a
collection of short stories that should be out in February 2017 in Singapore
and then books 12 and 13), and are looking to go beyond that too.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: We'll be in the U.S. (primarily the West Coast) in
October 2016 visiting schools and bookstores! The exact dates and times aren't
fixed yet but we'll definitely post them up on our social media pages:

Q: Why did you decide to write about Bobby Kennedy, and what
do you see as the most common perceptions and misperceptions about him?

A: I was fascinated as to why my mentors in journalism --
tough-minded, old-school guys like Bill Kovach and David Halberstam -- had
fallen in love with Bobby, the first and only times they did that. And I was
intrigued by the Kennedy brother who'd always struck me as the most passionate
and ethical.

I found out Bobby started out on the other side of the
political spectrum from where he ended up, as a cold warrior rather than a
hot-blooded liberal.

I found he helped get us into the Cuban Missile Crisis as
well as get us out.

I learned he wasn't always a champion of civil rights, but
once he was nobody was more determined and effective.

And, most surprising, I saw that politicians really could
learn, and grow, and get better.

Q: You begin your book by referring to "this
charismatic man's little-understood transformation from cold warrior to
hot-blooded liberal." What do you think accounted for this change?

A: He was changing the same way America was as we went from
the conservative era of Eisenhower to the tumultuous '60s, and he was helping
steer that change.

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between RFK and JFK?

A: They were the closest things this country has ever seen,
and is likely to, to a co-presidency.

Q: What about the relationship between RFK and Lyndon
Johnson?

A: They were bitter enemies, which is tragic since they
shared the goals of caring deeply about ending poverty, bridging the racial
divide, and keep progressive Democrats running America.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Can't say quite yet, other than that it's a bio of
another liberal icon. More once a publisher says YES, if they do.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Just that I've never done a book where half the people I
interviewed cried, where 1/3 of those I interviewed died during my three years on
the project, or where I had more fun.

Q:
How did you come up with your character Marianne and with the idea to focus your new novel around someone with bipolar disorder?

A:
That’s a great question because my other novels have come from dark what if
moments related to my life. Not this one. I’d already abandoned a novel about a
single dad with a teenage daughter who has undiagnosed bipolar disorder, when I
was visiting my mother in rural England.

A
random scene, which had nothing to do with anything I was working on, started
playing in my head. It was set in my childhood church, a place that celebrated
its 1,000th birthday—yes, three zeroes—when I was a teenager.

An
elegant American woman was sitting in the back pew wearing sunglasses while the
church ladies did the flowers. They became increasingly concerned about this
stranger, until one of them ran off to find the vicar. (He was whacking weeds
in the rectory garden wearing ripped jeans and a U2 T-shirt.)

When
he crouched down to talk with the woman, he recognized her as his childhood
best friend, and said, “Marianne, what’s brought you back after all this time?”
She replied, “I’ve come home to die.” Which she hadn’t, and I knew that, but I
knew nothing else.

Fast
forward a couple of years, and I was agonizing over what to write next. I had
to take an incredibly long car journey and as I drove, that scene starting replaying.
This time it didn’t stop.

But
it was a hard story to find, and Marianne is the most challenging character
I’ve written to date. At one point, I was ready to quit. I’m a research-heavy
novelist, and my initial research into manic-depression was overwhelming.

But
then I started interviewing inspiring women who live with the disease, and they
helped me find Marianne’s voice. I love Marianne; I hope readers will too.

Q:
In the book, you switch perspectives among four main characters. Did you plan
to do that from the beginning, or did that change as you wrote?

A:
I’m a fan of multiple viewpoints as a reader and as a writer. The first three
drafts were written with three viewpoints: Marianne; Gabriel, my U2 fan and English
vicar; and Marianne’s almost-daughter, Jade.

Then
my beta reader said, “We need to hear from Marianne’s husband, Darius.” So I
added one chapter. When the manuscript arrived at Lake Union, my wonderful
editorial team decided readers needed more Darius. I had loads of fun weaving
in his voice, and it gave the manuscript a different feel. This is why I love
to be edited.

Q:
How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

A:
The working title was Missing in Madness, but my publisher felt that suggested
a psychological thriller. Finding a new title that reflected the story was
tough because nothing I came up with worked as women’s fiction.

We
had already batted around a number of titles that included “echo” when the Lake
Union marketing director threw out Echoes of Family, and my editor and I both
loved it.

My
titles have to fold into the story and have direct significance, and

the
word “echoes” works on many levels. Marianne runs a recording studio with
Darius and Jade—her family—and all three of them prefer to record in older
spaces with natural reverb, an echo.

Plus,
everything for Marianne goes back to a fatal car wreck she was involved in at 16.
The other survivor was Gabriel, and he’s the only person who knows all her dark
secrets—including the ones her memory erased. The title actually refers to
their story, but that’s a plot spoiler. Sorry!

On
a personal level, I think the title suggests that you can always hear the
echoes of your past.

Q:
The book goes back and forth between scenes in England and the U.S., both
places where you have lived. Did you prefer one setting to the other as you
were writing?

A:
That’s tough to answer because both places have inspired my writing for 20
years. It was a joy, however, to reimagine my childhood village as Newton
Rushford.

My
86-year-old mother, who still lives there, named the village, which I love
because Echoes of Family is very much my tribute to a corner of England where
part of my heart still lives. I guess it’s my echo.

Q:
What are you working on now?

A:
I’m working on novel five (technically six since I have an unpublished manuscript).
My current working title—but that will change—is The Slightly Insane Mother,
which is inspired by The Catcher in the Rye and a line about all mothers being
slightly insane. The story is based on the premise: can you be a good mother if
you’ve abandoned your baby?

My
heroine has something called harm OCD, which is a particularly nasty mutation
of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It often hits new moms in the postpartum
phase and traps their minds in a never-ending horror movie of physically harming
their babies.

OCD
is a twisted anxiety disorder that latches on to the things you care about
most, often filling you with fear for the safety of your loved ones.

Since
my grown son has battled OCD for most of his life, I’m painfully familiar with its
impact on families, but harm OCD is, to quote the mother who runs a wonderful online
group called Mamas with Anxiety, OCD, and Panic Disorder, “the dirty underwear
of the OCD world.” Most mothers battle it in secrecy, isolation, and shame.

When
her daughter was seven months old, Katelyn MacDonald had intrusive images of stabbing
her baby. Believing that she was a psycho killer, she ran away. Ten years
later, she’s done the work to get well and has reinvented herself as Katie
Mack, a female metal artist.

One
day, preparing for an art show, she crosses paths with her daughter and realizes
10-year-old Maisie MacDonald also has OCD. Katie must then decide how to re-insert
herself into her daughter’s life for the same reason she left: to protect her
from monsters.

Q:
Anything else we should know?

A:
To receive updates on new releases and giveaways, please sign up for my
newsletter at http://www.barbaraclaypolewhite.com. My social media links and
email are also on my website, and I’m always on Facebook. Thank you for hosting
me, Deborah. See y’all in cyberspace!

Q:
You've said that Interference is a cross between Jane Austen's Emma and Friday
Night Lights. How did you come up with the idea of Emma at a modern-day West
Texas high school?

A:
I’m not sure I can take credit for starting with such a fully fleshed out idea,
but it did evolve into that.

I
started with the idea of a character like Emma. I know she’s not everyone’s
favorite because she can come across as a little self-involved, maybe even
spoiled. But what I have always liked about Emma was her earnestness and
sincerity. She has the best intentions even when they go awry, and I can relate
to that.

Another
thing that has always struck me about Emma is how much of an outsider she is. Even
though she’s spent her entire life in the same town, she can only interact with
a tiny group of people according to her society’s norms. The story begins by
isolating her even more when now married Mrs. Weston leaves. I think that
isolation is where a lot of the conflict and story comes from.

And
if you want to talk isolation, West Texas is a great setting. It is unique even
with in Texas. If you have ever driven there, the land flattens and turns these
beautiful earthy tones. It always felt a little like going to an island. It has
its own flavor and norms. I love places with personality. It makes the setting
interact with the characters. These are also great places for fish-out-of-water
stories.

The
beauty of [my character] Kate and Emma is that they are tough enough to
isolate. They would never consider giving up. They will fight through whatever
you throw at them. That’s a very “West Texas” attitude, I just realized. While
on the surface Kate is an outsider, deeper down, she fits the setting
perfectly.

Q:
Why did you include politics as such an important part of the novel?

A: I
like my characters to have a filter through which they see the world. Politics
is a great filter. It has capacity. Kate can be her most noble or petty and
cruel. She can be a creative problem-solver or closed-minded. These filters are
like second settings. Maybe “a setting for the character’s interior life” is a
good way to think of it.

Q:
Kate is also a photographer. Why did you decide on that as her passion?

A:
These questions are really making me think. Another trait I like a character to
have is a fascination. These fascinations are often the first hook into the
character for me.

I
follow their passions for a little while. I took a class to learn to develop
darkroom photographs. I checked out books on photographers to find the one’s
Kate would like. I get interested in my characters’ talents and pursuits, and
that gives me a path into the characters’ personalities.

Photography
always made sense to me for Kate. It gives her a safe way to look at the world
with a little distance. It also gave me a way to show her growth and her
increased tolerance for the messiness of authentic relationships. As she became
more connected, so did her photographs.

Q:
How was the novel's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

A:
Painfully. I am terrible at titles. The original title was Margin of Error.
Apparently, not even my mother liked that title. I like it, but I think that is
because I fell in love with the vocabulary of politics while writing this book.

My
editor suggested we go for a title that bridged Kate’s journey, politics, and
football. I remember sending her a list of possibilities, and Interference was
the last one I came up with. I think Interference is a better title. It’s the
piece of her personality that the story turns on. In many ways, it is her best
and worst trait.

Q:
What are you working on now?

A:
I have a couple of early drafts. One is contemporary. It’s definitely starting
with a Sense and Sensibility feel. The other is historical. It is set in
post-war Germany and has no ties to any Austen novel at the moment. I will
spare you their working titles as they are dreadful.

Q:
Anything else we should know?

A:
I really enjoyed this! Your questions made me think about some of the choices I
made while writing. It is always fun to figure out why my writer instincts led
me the direction they did. Thank you!

Ann E. Burg is the author of the new children's historical novel Unbound, which focuses on a community of people fleeing slavery, known as maroons, who escaped to the Great Dismal Swamp, located in Virginia and North Carolina. Her other books include Serafina's Promise and All the Broken Pieces. She lives in Rhinebeck, New York.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for your main character
Grace, and how did you first learn about the history of the Great Dismal Swamp?

A: I was actually researching for another story when I came
across an NPR article about the work of Daniel O. Sayers, a professor at
American University, who has been leading research teams in the Great Dismal
Swamp since 2004. That was my first encounter with the maroons.

The idea that an artifact can help us determine what someone
ate, how they clothed themselves, or built their homes fascinates me. But it
can never tell the whole story. Away from my computer and books, I began to
wonder about the people. This connection is always the next step.

My imagination stretches across time and place and begins to
stitch together vague shadows. These shadows knock about in my mind until they
become infused with life, until they become so substantial that I can even hear
them speak—that’s when I begin writing.

There is always more research to be done, but once a
character begins to speak, I listen and start writing. From that point on, my
characters become as real to me as my neighbors and friends.

Q: You’ve noted that you work with experts when you research
your books. What were some of the things you learned that particularly
surprised you about the runaways in the Great Dismal Swamp?

A: I think the very existence of the maroon community in the
Great Dismal Swamp surprised me the most. I continue to be amazed by the
courage and ingenuity of the individuals who forged their freedom there.

The research about this community isn’t new, but it doesn’t
seem to be widely known. Dr. Sayers’s work shed light on the history for me and
I wanted to learn more.

Dr. Sylviane A. Diouf's in-depth exploration of maroon
society in her book Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons, was
invaluable to me; I pondered over every known details of the maroons’
existence.

I’m so fortunate and grateful that Dr. Diouf fact-checked
Unbound and hope my book will shed light on this rich history for young readers
and lead them to learn more about the maroons.

I’m excited that the National Museum of African American
History and Culture, on the Mall in Washington, D.C., [opened] Sept. 24, and will
display artifacts that Sayers and his team discovered in the Great Dismal
Swamp. I can’t wait to go see them!

Q: You tell Grace’s story in verse. What do you think this
format contributes to the narrative?

A: Verse allows a character to tell her story in her own
words without any third party interference. When I write in verse, I become
totally immersed in my character's world. Hopefully, this allows my readers a
more direct connection to a character's thoughts and feelings.

Q: As someone who’s written for different age groups, does
your writing process change depending on the type of book?

A: Unless I am writing for the very young child where rhythm
dictates words, my writing process is pretty much the same.

Each story begins with the discovery of something I hadn't
known or contemplated. I research, take notes, and let thoughts and feelings
simmer together until the thread of a story and a possible character emerge.

Eventually, if it is a story worth telling, that character
startles me out of my imaginings with a distinct and insistent voice. That's
when I begin to write.

A targeted age group or word count isn't really something I
think about until after my first draft. Then I rely on my editor to determine
what readers might be most interested in what I've written.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I am working on something but am still in the gathering-simmering-waiting-for-a-story/character-to-materialize
stage so I can't be too specific. I can tell you that for the past few weeks
I've been researching the history of ship scrapping...

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Just that I am grateful for the opportunity to share my
thoughts with your readers! Thank you!

Q: Your new book is titled Foreign Policy: Thinking Outside
the Box. Why do you think many policymakers are boxed in, and what are some examples
of the ramifications?

A: The best example is the foreign policy followed in Cuba.
Everybody agrees for 50 years we did the same thing with minor modifications…

With China, we tried to isolate it, and it worked a little
better when we tried to engage.

First there’s the ego issue. When you identify the right
policy, your ego is on the line—status and prestige. Second, [the policy]
generates a political constituency…Somebody makes money off the policy. Often
it’s a combination of reasons that all make us stick to the same [thing]. There
was a higher cost in Iraq and Afghanistan…

Q: Looking at Iraq and Afghanistan as possible examples,
what are some of the ways you urge decisionmakers to think outside the box?

A: Let’s [also] take Libya and Syria. In all four cases, there was
one reason we are there. We stayed in Iraq and Afghanistan to turn them into
liberal democracies with human rights, freedom of religion, [to become] stable
allies.

We have long believed [other areas] in the world want our
kind of regime and if they don’t they need a kick in the pants…We have that
theory that we spend a huge amount, close to half a trillion dollars, trying to
make Iraq and Afghanistan into democracies, and they’re not…ready. We didn’t
lose the war, we lost the peace.

In Afghanistan, we insisted that 25 percent of the
legislature had to be women. It was alien to their religion and tradition. They
were not at that stage in their development.

Many hundreds of thousands of people died in Iraq since it
was liberated. We sent the Iraqi Army home; it all backfired.

[In Libya] as the rebels were marching from Benghazi to
Tripoli, Qaddafi suggested [a split] between the rebels and Qaddafi. The rebels
were not democratic or liberal. They were committing the same atrocities
Qaddafi was accused of. The U.S. said, We will not accept this, we want regime
change.

In Syria, it’s very complicated. One factor is every time
for the first four years the United States stated as a precondition for
negotiations that Assad had to go. You can’t negotiate with somebody if the
first condition is that you have to go. It’s an example of our idea to
democratize the world if they want it or not.

Q: One of the foreign policy issues you write about is
China. How would you advise U.S. officials to change their approach to China?

A: First we need to notice the very long history of things
where China and we want the same thing. Stopping the proliferation of nuclear
weapons. Stopping piracy on the high seas. There are surprisingly few on which
we differ. They say we want an island…If we step back and ask what China wants
most, it’s clearly not some rocks that may or may not belong to the
Philippines.

[The] danger is North Korea building missiles on which they
can put nuclear weapons. The only way we can stop this is to have China
participate. We need to find out what China wants, and make a bargain. China is
concerned we are flying up and down the coast. Once you figure out what they
and we want, and forget about the prestige issues, you could come to a grand
bargain.

Q: Looking at this year’s presidential election, do you
think either candidate is following the idea of thinking outside the box on
foreign policy?

A: Yes, Trump is completely outside the box in the nuthouse,
but that’s not what I meant. And Hillary hasn’t done much [outside the box].
This is not an election in which you can have ideas debated.

On China, because Trump thinks about everything as a
businessman, he thinks about China in economic terms, the TPP, free trading. It
becomes an issue Clinton and Trump are running away from.

Q: Are you working on another book now?

A: Yes, I just got a manuscript accepted. It’s about
avoiding war with China.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I was in a war for 2 ½ years, from age 17 ½ to 20. I
think I have a better feeling about the cost of war. Everybody should go a very
long way to not face another Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, world war.

If you read the collected documents about how to fight
China, none of them have any discussion about what we do with China after we
defeat it. That is distressing.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for Lucky Strikes and
for your character Amelia, a teenager who runs a gas station in 1930s Virginia?

A: Amelia came and found me.
She has an importunate quality to her, as any reader will discover, and once
I’d been introduced to her, the only questions left were: “What’s your story?
How can I best tell it?”

Q: How did you research the Depression-era setting and
especially the history of gas stations in that time?

A: Well, there’s a reason the book name-checks Clark Gable
and Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy because I grew up watching those vintage
Hollywood movies on TV (even though I was a couple of generations removed).

So I think I carry a lot of that time period inside me, but
of course, I made a point of reading a lot of literature from the period to
make sure I got the idioms right.

I know nothing
about cars or gas stations, then or now, so thank God I live six blocks from
the Library of Congress, which has (believe it or not) 1930s-era gas station
manuals.

Q: Did you find that your writing process was any different
with a children's novel than with your novels for adults?

A: Really, not at all. I’ve said this before, but this was
in some ways the least compromised book I’ve ever done. I just wrote the story
I wanted to tell and left it to my publisher to decide if it was appropriate
for the audience. I was never asked to change a thing.

Q: How was the book's title selected, and what does it
signify for you?

A: The book’s title was not mine! My working title was “The
Gas Station Pagans,” which makes total sense within the context of the book but
apparently doesn’t make as much sense when it’s staring out at you from some cover
in the middle of a bookstore. At least that’s what they tell me.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: A grown-up historical novel, set in 1840s America, and
that’s all I’m at liberty to say. But I know I’ll come back to the
YA/middle-grade world. It was just too much fun.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: My 16-year-old son is not much of a reader—he reads under
duress—but this was the first book of mine that he voluntarily read.

And at the same time I’m hearing from 40- and 50- and
60-somethings who are really responding to Melia and her family. It’s funny,
you always want your characters to find “good homes,” so when they do, the
satisfaction is almost parental.

Q: You were an editor before turning to writing children's
books. Why did you switch from one to the other, and how does your editing
background affect your writing?

A: I became an editor in large part because I didn't feel I
was smart enough to write books. My seven years as an editor were a great
learning experience. I saw how manuscripts arrived and had to be gently
shaped by an editor (Jim Giblin was my boss way back in 1970).

I found the process really exciting because it suggested
that even best selling writers didn't always present perfect manuscripts and,
in a way, gave me a certain level of confidence.

I also helped rewrite manuscripts (both at Clarion and as a
freelance editor after I left Clarion in 1977). This helped me sharpen my
idea of what a book should focus on and how to tell the story.

Finally, I was always asking writers to put in more
firsthand quotes and was surprised when most didn't bother. I decided that
I'd write books that let real historical figures do a great deal of talking for
themselves.

Q: Your recent book Breakthrough! focuses on the three
people who figured out how to repair a congenital heart defect called
"blue baby syndrome." How did you come up with the idea for this
book, and how did you research it?

A: I knew about Vivien Thomas from past research into
medical issues. My editor at Clarion, Dinah Stevenson, asked if I knew
anything about him and I said he had a great story (which she encouraged me to
tell).

As I dug deeper into research I decided that this was an
interesting example of how teamwork can produce what seems like a miraculous
result. Both Alfred Blalock and Helen Taussig have amazing stories as
well.

Research included lots and lots of reading of medical texts
and research papers by Blalock and others, talks with doctors and surgeons (I
wanted to know what it was really like to cut into someone's chest and operate
in the chest cavity), plus discussions with some surgeons who worked with all
three main characters.

I love doing
research, by the way. Writing is painful; research is eternal fun.

Q: You've covered various historical periods in your
work--do you have a favorite?

A: I enjoy thinking about and researching what it must
have been like to live 100, 200, 300, etc. years ago. I always come away
thinking it must have smelled really bad, but that I still might feel more at
home "way back then" then in the here and now.

Q: As someone who's written many books for kids, do you
write one at a time, or are you usually working on multiple projects?

A: I work on a number of books always -- some are in the
thinking stage, where I spend a lot of time trying to decide if there's
really enough in the subject to make me spend four or five years living with
it; some are in active research (where I ask the same question: do I
really want to do this as a book?); some are in the opening stages of writing
or a text in revision.

I often just write a book text without a contract, so this
is all a dangerous balancing act.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Alison Blank (my wife) and I have just finished a
nonfiction book on leprosy. Yes, leprosy!

It's more about what happened to people with this disease,
how they were banished from society, often illegally, and how they built new
and productive lives for themselves.

We focused on one boy who was sent off to Kaluapapa when he
was 16 and stayed there for over 60 years, and still managed to get married and
have a good (he said this) life.

I'm also working on a novel about a girl in the Civil War (I
do fiction from time to time).

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Speaking of fiction, I will have a novel published
in January called The Revenge of the Green Banana. It's about this kid
named Jimmy Murphy who was the worst student in St. Stephen's School and hated
by the seven-feet-tall Sisters of Charity.

Yes, it's about my experience in sixth grade and how I and a
group of other outcasts try to even the score and end up learning an even more
important lesson in the long run.

It's been reviewed on the Goodreads website, according
to Alison, and the Junior Literary Guild just picked it up.

It's (hopefully) very funny but says some serious
things about child abuse (by nuns, though most is psychological in this
book -- though I really was stabbed with a ballpoint pen by Sister Anita!),
bullying by other students, peer pressure, self-confidence or the lack of it,
and first love. Wish me luck.

About Me

Author, THE PRESIDENT AND ME: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE MAGIC HAT, new children's book (Schiffer, 2016). Co-author, with Marvin Kalb, of HAUNTING LEGACY: VIETNAM AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM FORD TO OBAMA (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).